McCain: Citizenship issue put to rest long ago - politics - Decision '08 - John McCain News | NBC News McCain: Citizenship issue put to rest long ago GOP candidate born on military base when Panama Canal was U.S. territory Below: x + - RICHARDSON, Texas — Republican presidential hopeful John McCain says the question of whether he can run for president, despite being born in the Panama Canal Zone, was put to rest 44 years ago in Barry Goldwater's run for the White House. McCain added that he doesn't know why his campaign sought legal analysis of whether his birth outside the continental United States might disqualify him from the presidency. The Constitution says only a "natural-born citizen" may serve as president. McCain's campaign asked former Solicitor General Ted Olson for a legal interpretation of the issue. Territorial dispute McCain himself insists the issue was put to rest when fellow Arizonan, Barry Goldwater, ran for president in 1964. "Barry Goldwater was born in Arizona when it was a territory, Arizona was a territory, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court," McCain told reporters Thursday on his campaign plane. "And there's no doubt about that.

And it was researched again in 2000." The Panama Canal Zone was a U.S. territory when McCain was born on Aug. 29, 1936. Advertise As for the reason for seeking Olson's opinion: "I don't know," McCain said. "Maybe my staff talked to him, but I didn't. But I have absolutely no concern about that." "It's very clear that (the idea that) an American born in a territory of the United States whose father is serving in the military would not be eligible for the presidency of the United States is certainly not something our founding fathers envisioned." McCain's father was stationed in the Canal Zone by the Navy at the time of his birth. McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said the request for Olson's help was routine, and it wasn't necessary to bring it to the attention of the senator. Constitutional research Olson said he is still researching the issue but is certain McCain is qualified. The plain meaning of "natural-born citizen" includes those born to parents who are citizens, particularly when they are born on a U.S. military base as McCain was, Olson said.

Other political news of note Fluke files to run in California "I am confident that the United States Supreme Court, should it ever address the issue, would agree," Olson said in a statement. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, people are born U.S. citizens if they are born in the U.S. or their parents are U.S. citizens. The question arises because Article II of the Constitution limits the office of president to a "natural-born citizen," a term on which the Founding Fathers did not elaborate. Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, a prominent backer of Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama , introduced legislation Thursday that would define a "natural-born citizen" as anyone born to any U.S. citizen while serving in the active or reserve components of the U.S. armed forces. Obama's campaign announced late Thursday that he will co-sponsor the bill. "Those who serve and sacrifice for their country, like John McCain and his father, deserve every honor and privilege that our nation can possibly provide, and that includes the ability to run for the highest office in the land," Obama said in a statement. Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Now CNN Weighs In: Is Ted Cruz Eligible to be President? – TheBlaze Texas Senator Ted Cruz. (Getty Images) Is Canadian-born Texas Sen. Ted Cruz eligible to run for president? CNN argues the precedent has been set for people born outside of U.S. borders to make a run for the White House. “George Romney, Mitt Romney’s father, was born in Mexico to Mormon missionaries. He ran for president in 1968,” CNN reminds us. Even Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who lost to Barack Obama in 2008, was born outside of the U.S. McCain’s father, an admiral with the U.S. Navy, was stationed in the Panama Canal Zone at the time. The U.S.

Constitution says specifically that “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.” The entire purpose of the “natural born Citizen” clause in the Constitution was to guard against aristocracy setting up shop in America and taking over. But what qualifies as a “natural born citizen”? “Citizen scholarship falls on the side of McCain. He had two American citizen parents and one was working for the U.S. government when he was born in Panama,” CNN notes. It’s not so clear-cut for Cruz. The Tea Party firebrand senator was born to only one U.S. citizen — his father was a Cuban émigré. The senator’s background has prompted at least a few celebrities, including business mogul Donald Trump and pundit Ann Coulter, to question his eligibility. “I don’t know the circumstances. I heard somebody told me he was born in Canada,” Trump told ABC News on Sunday .

“That’s really his thing.” Cruz’s eligibility is “not open and shut,” Coulter said in a recent interview , adding that “We’re gonna’ have to have some law professors look at it and give us the answer.” The Congressional Research Service has weighed in on the issue with a 50-page report. Here are the most pertinent passages: The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term “natural born” citizen would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship “by birth” or “at birth,” either by being born “in” the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents; by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents; or by being born in other situations meeting legal requirements for U.S. citizenship “at birth.” “It does not specifically deal with the issue of someone born outside the United States to one American parent,” CNN notes. “But if Cruz could claim citizenship at birth, according to the argument, he could claim to be natural born.” Cruz, for his part, has dismissed critics who question his eligibility. “My mother was born in Wilmington, Delaware. She’s a U.S. citizen, so I’m a U.S.

citizen,” Cruz told ABC in July . “I’m not going to engage in a legal debate. The facts are clear.” He added, “I can tell you where I was born and who my parents were. And then as a legal matter, others can worry about that. I’m not going to engage.” – Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams ) on Twitter Featured image Getty Images. Five other presidential “birther” controversies from American history Five other presidential “birther” controversies from American history January 14, 2016 Email In the midst of the current debate over Ted Cruz’s eligibility for the presidency, Constitution Daily looks back at five other birthplace controversies involving candidates. Currently, GOP front runner Donald Trump wants Cruz to legally prove that the Canadian-born Senator is qualified to run for the White House. Cruz has insisted that “the son of a U.S. citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen.” Article II, Section 1, of the U.S.

Constitution requires that “[n]o person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.” Cruz was born in Canada in 1970, with his father being from Cuba and his mother coming from Delaware in the United States. Recent thoughts from constitutional experts seem to side with Cruz’s argument, but not all experts agree – including Cruz’s own law professor from Harvard. Laurence Tribe recently told the Guardian in a series of email exchanges that “there is no single, settled answer. And our Supreme Court has never addressed the issue.” A related issue is the eligibility of a candidate born in the United States to foreign-born parents. Specifically, the first sentence of the 14th Amendment reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” A later Supreme Court decision, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, seemingly reinforced the theory than people born on American soil are American citizens. But not everyone agrees with that, pointing to the clause “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” as proof the 14th Amendment’s drafters has limited intent when drafting that provision.

In 2012, Trump has publicly doubted President Barack Obama’s eligibility to hold office, siding with theories that Obama might have been born outside of the United States, giving birth to the term “birther.” Here’s a look at five other birthplace controversies, going back to the original birther debate in 1880. Chester Alan Arthur In 1880, Arthur ran as the vice presidential candidate on the James Garfield ticket for the Republican Party. Arthur became President after Garfield’s death in 1881 and there were rumors – spread by campaign rivals – that Arthur had been born in Canada, and not Vermont, as he claimed. Arthur’s father was born in Ireland and his mother was born in the United States. If Arthur was born in Canada, his opponents claimed, there was a citizenship issue. Marquette Law professor J.

Gordon Hylton pointed out in a 2009 blog post that if Arthur was born in Canada “he was technically foreign-born, and in 1829, citizenship in such cases passed to the child only if the father was a United States citizen, and, of course, at this point Arthur’s father was still a citizen of the British Empire.” Charles Evans Hughes There was also a birthplace controversy over the 1916 presidential candidacy of Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican who narrowly lost to Woodrow Wilson. There were claims that Hughes was ineligible for office because his father was born in the British Empire in Wales. Hughes was born in Glen Falls, New York, and his mother was also born in New York state; he was also born before the 14th Amendment was ratified. An attorney, Breckinridge Long, apparently challenged Hughes’ qualifications in a 1916 Chicago Legal News article. Barry Goldwater The 1964 Republican presidential candidate was born in the Arizona Territory in 1909 before Arizona was admitted as a state. Goldwater was born in an organized incorporated territory that was formed in 1863, an act that is interpreted to grant U.S.

citizenship to folks born there. For more on the citizenship distinction between incorporated and unincorporated territories, see the recent news coverage about the efforts of American Samoa residents to become full American citizens. George Romney As a candidate for the 1968 presidency, Romney faced questions because he was born in Chihuahua, Mexico in 1907 at a Mormon colony. His parents were born in the Utah Territory before Utah became a state, and they were American citizens. Romney’s parents chose United States citizenship for their son. The Romneys left Mexico when George Romney was very young, due to the Mexican Revolution. Democrats questioned Romney’s ability to run for President in 1967 when congressman Emmanuel Celler, a Democrat, publicly expressed “serious doubts” about Romney’s eligibility. A New York Law Journal article later sided with Romney , who insisted he was a natural-born citizen. John McCain Senator McCain faced questions in the 2008 election, since he was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936. His parents were born in Iowa and Oklahoma. McCain’s father was a Navy admiral.

In addition to having two parents who were American citizens, McCain was born in a region that was under the control of a United States treaty agreement, which was considered as a sovereign United States territory. In 2008, Tribe and Theodore Olsen, another well-known legal expert, wrote in a law journal article that “the circumstances of Senator McCain’s birth satisfy the original meaning and intent of the Natural Born Citizen Clause, as confirmed by subsequent legal precedent and historical practice.” Still, there was on-going talk during the McCain campaign on the Internet that the Senator wasn’t eligible for the White House, which led to several unsuccessful lawsuits. The Senate passed a nonbinding resolution declaring McCain as eligible to be President. Recent Stories on Constitution Daily A Citizen, but ‘Natural Born’? McCain’s Eligibility to Be President Is Disputed by Professor - The New York Times The New York Times Politics |A Hint of New Life to a McCain Birth Issue Search Continue reading the main story In the most detailed examination yet of Senator John McCain ’s eligibility to be president, a law professor at the University of Arizona has concluded that neither Mr.

McCain’s birth in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone nor the fact that his parents were American citizens is enough to satisfy the constitutional requirement that the president must be a “natural-born citizen.” The analysis , by Prof. Gabriel J. Chin, focused on a 1937 law that has been largely overlooked in the debate over Mr. McCain’s eligibility to be president. The law conferred citizenship on children of American parents born in the Canal Zone after 1904, and it made John McCain a citizen just before his first birthday. But the law came too late, Professor Chin argued, to make Mr. McCain a natural-born citizen. “It’s preposterous that a technicality like this can make a difference in an advanced democracy,” Professor Chin said. “But this is the constitutional text that we have.” Several legal experts said that Professor Chin’s analysis was careful and plausible. But they added that nothing was very likely to follow from it. Continue reading the main story “No court will get close to it, and everyone else is on board, so there’s a constitutional consensus, the merits of arguments such as this one aside,” said Peter J. Spiro, an authority on the law of citizenship at Temple University.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story Mr. McCain has dismissed any suggestion that he does not meet the citizenship test. In April, the Senate approved a nonbinding resolution declaring that Mr. McCain is eligible to be president. Its sponsors said the nation’s founders would have never intended to deny the presidency to the offspring of military personnel stationed out of the country. A lawsuit challenging Mr. McCain’s qualifications is pending in the Federal District Court in Concord, N.H. There are, Professor Chin argued in his analysis, only two ways to become a natural-born citizen. One, specified in the Constitution, is to be born in the United States. The other way is to be covered by a law enacted by Congress at the time of one’s birth. Professor Chin wrote that simply being born in the Canal Zone did not satisfy the 14th Amendment, which says that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” Photo A 1936 picture shows the future presidential candidate John McCain in the arms of his grandfather John Sidney McCain in the Canal Zone. His father, John Sidney McCain Jr., is at left.

Credit McCain Presidential Campaign, via Associated Press A series of early-20th-century decisions known as the Insular Cases, he wrote, ruled that unincorporated territories acquired by the United States were not part of the nation for constitutional purposes. The Insular Cases did not directly address the Canal Zone. But the zone was generally considered an unincorporated territory before it was returned to Panama in 1999, and some people born in the Canal Zone when it was under American jurisdiction have been deported from the United States or convicted of being here illegally. The second way Mr. McCain could have, and ultimately did, become a citizen was by statute, Professor Chin wrote. In Rogers v. Bellei in 1971, the Supreme Court said Congress had broad authority to decide whether and when children born to American citizens abroad are citizens. At the time of Mr. McCain’s birth, the relevant law granted citizenship to any child born to an American parent “out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States.” Professor Chin said the term “limits and jurisdiction” left a crucial gap. The Canal Zone was beyond the limits of the United States but not beyond its jurisdiction, and thus the law did not apply to Mr.

McCain. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy In 1937, Congress addressed the problem, enacting a law that granted citizenship to people born in the Canal Zone after 1904. That made Mr. McCain a citizen, but not one who was naturally born, Professor Chin said, because the citizenship was conferred after his birth. In his paper and in an interview, Professor Chin, a registered Democrat, said he had no political motive in raising the question. Advertisement Continue reading the main story In March, Laurence H. Tribe, a law professor at Harvard and an adviser to Senator Barack Obama, prepared a memorandum on these questions with Theodore B. Olson, a former solicitor general in the Bush administration. The memorandum concluded that Mr. McCain is a natural-born citizen based on the place of his birth, the citizenship of his parents and their service to the country. In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Olson, whose firm represents Mr. McCain in the New Hampshire lawsuit, said Congress could not have intended to leave the gap described by Professor Chin.

The 1937 law, Mr. Olson said, was not a fix but a way to clarify what Congress had meant all along. Professor Tribe agreed. Reading the “limits and jurisdiction” clause as Professor Chin does, Professor Tribe said, “is to attribute a crazy design to Congress” that “would create an irrational gap.” Brian Rogers, a McCain spokesman, said the campaign concurred and was confident Mr. McCain is eligible to serve. In the motion to dismiss the New Hampshire suit, Mr. McCain’s lawyers said an individual citizen like the plaintiff, a Nashua man named Fred Hollander, lacks proof of direct injury and cannot sue. Daniel P. Tokaji, an election law expert at Ohio State University, agreed. “It is awfully unlikely that a federal court would say that an individual voter has standing,” he said. “It is questionable whether anyone would have standing to raise that claim. You’d have to think a federal court would look for every possible way to avoid deciding the issue.” Carl Hulse contributed reporting. A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: A Hint of New Life to a McCain Birth Issue.

Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Is John McCain A ‘Natural-Born Citizen’? Is John McCain a ‘Natural-Born Citizen’? James Joyner · Thursday, February 28, 2008 · 17 Comments John McCain was born on a U.S. Navy base overseas. The NYT’s Carl Hulse has an interesting article about whether McCain is Constitutionally eligible to be president. Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office. Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states. The short answer is that most legal scholars presume someone who was born a citizen, regardless of location, qualifies.

But the question has never been tested in court. That it’s even an issue at this stage is silly. The Founders had a not unreasonable concern in 1789 that the fledgling nation be led by someone with unquestioned loyalty but they made a mistake enshrining that in the Constitution. Now, though, the idea that an Arnold Schwarzenegger or a Henry Kissinger or John Shalikashvili shouldn’t be eligible to run for president is absurd. UPDATE: Jim Lindgren has a detailed discussion of the common law meaning of “natural born” demonstrating that McCain would, of course, qualify. Of particular interest is this passage from Blackstone: When I say, that an alien is one who is born out of the king’s dominions, or allegiance, this also must be understood with some restrictions. The common law indeed stood absolutely so; with only a very few exceptions: so that a particular act of parliament became necessary after the restoration, for the naturalization of children of his majesty’s English subjects, born in foreign countries during the late troubles.

And this maxim of the law proceeded upon a general principle, that every man owes natural allegiance where he is born, and cannot owe two such allegiances, or serve two masters, at once. Yet the children of the king’s embassadors born abroad were always held to be natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom he is sent; so, with regard to the son also, he was held (by a kind of postliminium) to be born under the king of England’s allegiance, represented by his father, the embassador. To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king, and the mother had passed the seas by her husband’s consent, might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants.

But by several more modern statutes these restrictions are still farther taken off: so that all children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain. That has always been my understanding as well. The distinction is between bithright citizens — i.e., those who were citizens at the time of birth — and naturalized citizens, who who born citizens of another country and have to apply and be admitted to American citizenship, renouncing their former allegiance. Five other presidential “birther” controversies from American history Five other presidential “birther” controversies from American history NCC Staff Pin it Share In the midst of the current debate over Ted Cruz’s eligibility for the presidency, Constitution Daily looks back at five other birthplace controversies involving candidates. More Currently, GOP front runner Donald Trump wants Cruz to legally prove that the Canadian-born Senator is qualified to run for the White House. Cruz has insisted that “the son of a U.S.

citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen.” Article II, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution requires that “[n]o person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.” Cruz was born in Canada in 1970, with his father being from Cuba and his mother coming from Delaware in the United States. Recent thoughts from constitutional experts seem to side with Cruz’s argument, but not all experts agree – including Cruz’s own law professor from Harvard. Laurence Tribe recently told the Guardian in a series of email exchanges that “there is no single, settled answer. And our Supreme Court has never addressed the issue.” A related issue is the eligibility of a candidate born in the United States to foreign-born parents. Specifically, the first sentence of the 14th Amendment reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” A later Supreme Court decision, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, seemingly reinforced the theory than people born on American soil are American citizens.

But not everyone agrees with that, pointing to the clause “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” as proof the 14th Amendment’s drafters has limited intent when drafting that provision. In 2012, Trump has publicly doubted President Barack Obama’s eligibility to hold office, siding with theories that Obama might have been born outside of the United States, giving birth to the term “birther.” Here’s a look at five other birthplace controversies, going back to the original birther debate in 1880. Chester Alan Arthur In 1880, Arthur ran as the vice presidential candidate on the James Garfield ticket for the Republican Party. Arthur became President after Garfield’s death in 1881 and there were rumors – spread by campaign rivals – that Arthur had been born in Canada, and not Vermont, as he claimed. Arthur’s father was born in Ireland and his mother was born in the United States. If Arthur was born in Canada, his opponents claimed, there was a citizenship issue. Marquette Law professor J.

Gordon Hylton pointed out in a 2009 blog post that if Arthur was born in Canada “he was technically foreign-born, and in 1829, citizenship in such cases passed to the child only if the father was a United States citizen, and, of course, at this point Arthur’s father was still a citizen of the British Empire.” Charles Evans Hughes There was also a birthplace controversy over the 1916 presidential candidacy of Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican who narrowly lost to Woodrow Wilson. There were claims that Hughes was ineligible for office because his father was born in the British Empire in Wales. Hughes was born in Glen Falls, New York, and his mother was also born in New York state; he was also born before the 14th Amendment was ratified. An attorney, Breckinridge Long, apparently challenged Hughes’ qualifications in a 1916 Chicago Legal News article. Barry Goldwater The 1964 Republican presidential candidate was born in the Arizona Territory in 1909 before Arizona was admitted as a state. Goldwater was born in an organized incorporated territory that was formed in 1863, an act that is interpreted to grant U.S.

citizenship to folks born there. For more on the citizenship distinction between incorporated and unincorporated territories, see the recent news coverage about the efforts of American Samoa residents to become full American citizens. George Romney As a candidate for the 1968 presidency, Romney faced questions because he was born in Chihuahua, Mexico in 1907 at a Mormon colony. His parents were born in the Utah Territory before Utah became a state, and they were American citizens. Romney’s parents chose United States citizenship for their son. The Romneys left Mexico when George Romney was very young, due to the Mexican Revolution. Democrats questioned Romney’s ability to run for President in 1967 when congressman Emmanuel Celler, a Democrat, publicly expressed “serious doubts” about Romney’s eligibility. A New York Law Journal article later sided with Romney , who insisted he was a natural-born citizen. John McCain Senator McCain faced questions in the 2008 election, since he was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936. His parents were born in Iowa and Oklahoma. McCain’s father was a Navy admiral.

In addition to having two parents who were American citizens, McCain was born in a region that was under the control of a United States treaty agreement, which was considered as a sovereign United States territory. In 2008, Tribe and Theodore Olsen, another well-known legal expert, wrote in a law journal article that “the circumstances of Senator McCain’s birth satisfy the original meaning and intent of the Natural Born Citizen Clause, as confirmed by subsequent legal precedent and historical practice.” Still, there was on-going talk during the McCain campaign on the Internet that the Senator wasn’t eligible for the White House, which led to several unsuccessful lawsuits. The Senate passed a nonbinding resolution declaring McCain as eligible to be President. Recent Stories on Constitution Daily The Presidency And “Natural Born” Citizenship—Barry Goldwater, John McCain, Barack Obama, YES! George Romney And Ted Cruz, NO! | The Progressive Professor The Presidency And “Natural Born” Citizenship—Barry Goldwater, John McCain, Barack Obama, YES! George Romney And Ted Cruz, NO! Ronald Leave a comment The question of “natural born” citizenship has arisen in recent years, with the cases of John McCain, Barack Obama, and now Ted Cruz running for President.

It also showed up when Barry Goldwater was running for President in 1964, and George Romney was planning a Presidential campaign in 1968. It seems clear that the answer as to who of these individuals were or are eligible to run for President is as follows: Barry Goldwater WAS eligible to run for President in 1964, as he was born in Arizona, which was a territory at the time of his birth in 1909, becoming a state in 1912! George Romney never actually declared for President in 1968, but arguably, he was NOT eligible to be President, as he was born to Mormon parents in Mexico! John McCain, when he ran for President in 2000 and again in 2008, WAS eligible to run for President, as he was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which was a US territory from the time of the Panama Canal treaty in 1903. until its turnover to Panama at the end of 1999. And the Canal Zone had a US Military base, which made it US territory!

Barack Obama, when he ran for President in 2008 and 2012, WAS eligible to run for President, as he was born in the state of Hawaii, which had become a state in 1959, two years before Obama was born, but even if still a territory, Obama was perfectly eligible for the Presidency! Finally, Senator Ted Cruz’s campaign for President is in dispute, as Cruz was born in Canada and lived there for four years, so despite his statements, he is technically NOT eligible to be President of the United States! The answer is that IF you wish your son or daughter to run for President fifty or more years from now, make sure that your baby is born on a military base or diplomatic mission of the United States overseas, NOT on foreign soil not related to the United States! It is ironic that all of the contested cases of natural born citizenship have been Republicans, with the exception of Obama, amazing when one thinks how the Republican Party in modern times is uptight about citizenship and immigration! Share this: McCain questions Cruz’s eligibility to run for president - The Washington Post McCain questions Cruz’s eligibility to run for president The inside track on Washington politics. Be the first to know about new stories from PowerPost.

Sign up to follow, and we’ll e-mail you free updates as they’re published. You’ll receive free e-mail news updates each time a new story is published. You’re all set! By Katie Zezima By Katie Zezima January 6, 2016 Follow @katiezez Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz speaks during a town hall meeting at Dordt College in Sioux City, Iowa, on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg) Sen. John McCain questioned whether Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who was born in Canada, is eligible to be president. McCain, who has long clashed with Cruz in the Senate, said on KFYI Wednesday that "it's worth looking into" whether Cruz is a natural born citizen, a requirement to be president. The assertion comes the day after Donald Trump, whom Cruz is leading in polls in Iowa, told The Washington Post that Cruz's birthplace could be "very precarious" for the GOP.

When asked how Cruz could run for president if he was born in Canada, McCain answered, "I do not know the answer to that." McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936, and the Senate unanimously passed a resolution declaring him a natural born citizen when he ran for president in 2008. McCain said Wednesday the issue is different because the Canal Zone was a territory and U.S. Military base and there was precedent set when Barry Goldwater, who was born in Arizona when it was a territory, ran for president. "That's different than being born on foreign soil," he said. "I think there is a question," he said of Cruz. "I am not a constitutional scholar on that but I think it's worth looking into. I don't think it's illegitimate to look into it." Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has been complimenting one of his 2016 rivals, businessman Donald Trump, for months. Now, Trump is warming up to Cruz, too. Here's what the two men have had to say about one another on the political trail. (The Washington Post) Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta, in 1970 to an American citizen mother and Cuban-born father.

He has said he is an American citizen by virtue of his mother's U.S. citizenship. He has renounced his Canadian citizenship. Legal scholars have said Cruz meets the requirement of natural born citizenship, though it is untested in the courts. Sen. Rand Paul, who is also seeking the Republican nomination, also brought up the issue Wednesday, stating Cruz is eligible to be prime minister of Canada. Cruz initially responded to Trump's comment by tweeting a clip of an episode of "Happy Days" where a character water skis over a shark, which has come to mean something is overdone. Speaking to reporters, he said that the public wants to focus on substantive issues. The media, he said, "loves to ... gaze at their navels for hours on end by a tweet from Donald Trump or from me or from anybody else. Who cares?" On Wednesday Cruz again asserted that the media want him and Trump to fight -- and that he doesn't intend to do so. Cruz's campaign did not immediately respond to McCain's comments.

politics Carl Hulse - On the Hill - Election 2008 - Politics - The New York Times The New York Times Politics |Senators Cross Party Lines to Remove Doubt on McCain’s Presidential Eligibility Search Continue reading the main story When it comes to John Sidney McCain, opinions in the Senate about his presidential qualifications can definitely be mixed. But Democrats and Republicans hope to find unanimous agreement on at least one basic aspect of their colleague’s run for the White House  that he is unequivocally eligible to be president even though he was born in the Panama Canal Zone. With the arcane Constitutional issue about Mr. McCain’s status popping up in a couple of courtrooms, the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected next week to approve and send to the Senate floor a non-binding resolution that seeks to put to rest any question about Mr. McCain and that murky “natural born Citizen” clause. “Resolved, That John Sidney McCain, III, is a ‘natural born Citizen’ under Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States,” declares the resolution co-authored by Senators Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri.

The sponsors include both Democrats vying to be Mr. McCain’s opponent, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, as well as Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Of course, the authors acknowledge the resolution would have little real influence were the matter of Mr. McCain’s eligibility hanging by a legal thread. Mr. Leahy is skeptical it is needed at all since he believes there is already no doubt Mr. McCain meets the standard. But he said he is willing to take the extra step. “We just want to make it very clear,” said Mr. Leahy. The matter arises, as they say in legal circles, because the Founding Fathers inserted the cryptic phrase “natural born Citizen” into the Constitution when listing the elementary requirements for seeking the presidency of the new nation. Given the absence of C-Span coverage of the deliberations, it has been a bit of mystery ever since just exactly what the founders meant by that phrase. At various points in the country’s history, it was widely assumed that it meant a presidential candidate must have been born to American citizens on the soil of any of what would become or are now the 50 states.

It wasn’t so much a matter of citizenship as geography. Mr. McCain is indisputably a citizen. Through the years, some potential candidates took themselves out of the running because of their birth on something other than American soil. Those who were born elsewhere and ran never made it to the finish line so the issue was never fully tested or clarified. Some legal scholars say its meaning is still in doubt. As a result, should Mr. McCain be elected, he would be the first president not born within what became the continental United States. He was instead born in the Canal Zone in 1936 when his father, a Naval officer, was stationed there. Mr. McCain has dismissed any question of his eligibility as long settled. Many others consider the matter nonsense, saying it seems unlikely the founding fathers were interested in banning the offspring of military personnel stationed abroad from serving as president. (Of course, they probably didn’t envision having armies overseas since foreign occupation was one of the reasons they were unhappy with Great Britain in the first place.) Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to.

Sign Up Privacy Policy The Senate resolution concedes the term natural born was not defined in the Constitution but notes there is also no evidence the intent was to ban someone like Mr. McCain, a war hero and long-time public servant. “The well-being of all citizens of the United States is preserved and enhanced by the men and women who are assigned to serve our country outside of our national borders,” says the resolution. Since the issue was visited in a New York Times article in February, at least three lawsuits have been filed, with cases still active in California and New Hampshire. Advertisement Continue reading the main story But two of the top legal minds in the country say Mr. McCain has nothing to worry about. In a joint analysis, former Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson, a McCain adviser, and Harvard professor Laurence Tribe, an Obama supporter, determined the “circumstances of Senator McCain’s birth satisfy the original meaning and intent of the Natural Born Citizen Clause as confirmed by subsequent legal precedent and historical practice.” The men put a lot of stock in the fact that British law at the time held that children born abroad to natural born subjects were also natural-born subjects of the monarch.

“The Framers substituted the word ‘citizen’ for ‘subject’ to reflect the shift from monarchy to democracy, but the Supreme Court has recognized that the two terms are otherwise identical,” said an analysis issued by the lawyers last month. They also note that Charles Curtis, who was vice president during the Hoover administration, was born in Kansas when it was a territory. Since the 12th Amendment requires that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president shall be eligible to that of vice president,” they argue the precedent is already set for someone born within United States territory but outside the states to qualify for president. Many who have studied the issue say it can only be definitively resolved by a Constitutional amendment. “Obviously, we are not going to get the Constitution amended in the next two or three months,” said Ms. McCaskill, who was driven to clear up any ambiguity after learning of the potential problem. “We are just trying to send the strongest signal we can as quickly and simply as we can.” Naturally.

Question: Which US Senator who ran for the White House in 2008 was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936?
Answer: JOHN McCAIN